“The Set-Up”-With The Detective Fiction Writer Dashiell Hammett In Mind

“The Set-Up”-With The Detective Fiction Writer Dashiell Hammett In Mind

By Zack James

Alexander Slater had always been ever since he was a kid, maybe ten or eleven if not before, a big fan of hard-boiled detective novels and films based on those novels by guys like Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Rich O’Connor, Sid Stein, and Lanny Drew. Had spent many a Riverdale hometown Saturday afternoon in the late 1950s in the faded run-down, gum-strewn on the floor, cobwebs in the balcony seats, toilet in the men’s room a relic of plumbing around the time of the original Cranes who made their fortunes providing such hard-wear to the growing population in need of indoor plumbing and whose castle overlooked Crane’s Beach up north of Riverdale about seventy-five miles away, old-fashioned popcorn cooker which always, always provided burnt kernels at the bottom of the box Majestic Theater on Mooney Street just off of the downtown shopping area watching re-runs  of the classics like The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, The Lady In The Lake, The whole Thin Man series, The Last Kiss, Girl Hunt, and The Lost Ones. That downtown area also beginning to fade as the stores, Doc’s Drugstore, the 5&10, Morley’s Clothing store, Sam’s Furniture store and the like that used to cater to the town’s needs moved out to the strip malls or all-purpose malls out on Route One a few miles from downtown.

Of course as a kid all Alexander cared about, along with his regular crew of Saturday matinee double-feature companions, Skip James, Jack Callahan, Johnny Rizzo, Five-Fingers Murphy, Frank Riley and sometimes before his family moved out of town so his father could take a job in the emerging computer industry at Honeywell about forty miles away along Route 128, was that they had enough money to cover the admission (trying as boys universally would then, probably still do, to get the under twelve reduced admission price long after they had entered their teens), were being “grounded” for some silly home or school infraction , and, maybe, just maybe, that for once the popcorn although always with burnt offerings was not stale. So Alexander had through the marvels of cinematic technology and the printed page been able to form a very distinct idea about what a private detective should be like, what he looked like and how he handled himself in the rough spots.       

That ideal was probably epitomized by Sam Slade in The Maltese Falcon on the screen (the 1940s one that made Humphrey Bogart, Bogie, famous not the two earlier ones which he had never seen until a few years ago via Netflix he had ordered the pair online and was seriously disappointed in those efforts, as was his wife Mary who while not nearly as much a fan of the private detective did love the Bogie version of the Falcon) and in some short stories done by Hammett by scrambling through a few libraries and second-hand bookstores looking for compilations. In a word a guy and it was always guys then still were a lot now although he had read a few interesting female detective stories, working class guys, tough, tough enough to by sheer will and pluck to outsmart his well-organized criminal opponents, hard-boiled no question, no sap for anybody even women which every guys knows is easy enough to become when the skirts going swishing by, with a code, a beautiful code of honor that he follows as best he can, maybe not to the letter but as best he can in the spirit, hard-drinking which somehow focused the senses whenever the bottle in the lower desk draw came out, and a rough and ready sense of justice, of tilting after windmills for the good of the cause.

And there that image stayed for a fairly long time until Alexander went out into the world of work after high school. He had taken shop classes in school, printing shop and so immediately after high school he had taken a full-time job with Mister Calder, the best commercial printer in town, whom he worked for after school and on weekends in high school. In due course after a few years in the dreaded Army in Vietnam which took a certain toll on him when he came back to the “real” world, a few years “finding himself” through dope, rock and roll, and following the hitchhike road that many guys of his generation took for a while when Mister Calder retired he took over the shop located in the first floor of the Tappan Building on Lancaster Street right off of downtown (in the opposite direction from the now long gone old Majestic if you were familiar with Riverdale back in the 1970s or earlier).   

At one time, back in the 1940s, early 1950s, the eight story Tappan Building was what they would call today the anchor of the downtown business section. Was the pride of Riverdale what with prosperous small law firms, a few doctors’ offices when doctors had their own private practices more, a couple of dentists, a few reputable insurance companies, nothing big, no Fortune 500 firms but substantial, solid professional. As those firms and professionals drifted out to the strip malls or were eaten up by larger firms elsewhere the once glorious Tappan Building began a long decline into “seen better days.” The owners kind of gave up on the place, not keeping it up with leaking faucets in the restrooms, un-waxed public area floors, unreliable elevators, and the sanctified smell of decay that follows such downward spiraling enterprises. Alexander had taken over for Mister Calder well into the decline of the building but since the leasing arrangements with the owners provided for cheap terms and the fact that his printing business was not one in need of a “good front” he never felt the need to move, probably a wise move once the high-tech moguls made self-printing for most occasions a worthwhile effort.

Alexander thus observed the decline of the Tappan Building first-hand as the type of businesses switched from prosperous professionals to shady characters. A couple of “repo” men, a few failed dentists whom you would not want within fifty feet of your mouth, maybe farther away, a couple of chiropractors, some no-name insurance firms, a notary public, a least a few guys who were running some kinds of scams out of their offices, and a detective agency. Fred Sims’ Detective Agency although all the years that he knew Fred he was the sole detective.      

Fred had been in the building since the mid-1960s but between Alexander’s military service and his wanderlust he did not meet Fred until he took over for Mister Calder. Once they met, met in Dolly’s Diner across the street from the Tappan, a place that is still there although Dolly’s granddaughter runs the place now and has changed it from a smoked-filled ham and eggs, coffee and crullers place to more healthful food and clean atmosphere for those who own the condos that had been created as a result of converting many of the old buildings, schools and churches in the area, they hit it off from the beginning although Fred was a good decade older than Alexander.

Fred, let’s be clear, was not, hear this, was not, and probably never would be Alexander image of a private detective build up from childhood (although in fairness to Fred he was the very first P.I. he had run into in person). Short, bald, with unkempt side hairs sticking out of the baseball cap that he wore indoors and out, and almost never took off, an old Robert Hall’s, if you remember that name in men’s clothing from another age, shaggy sport’s jacket, one of three he owned and alternated, threadbare socks, turned at the heel shoes, black, and many days, many no client days, a fair amount of stubble on his face. His office on the fifth floor reflected that persona, no real “front.”  A hand-printed cardboard sign advertising his name and business on the front door, a small waiting room (which made Alexander laugh for all the years that he knew Fred he never saw anybody in that room), dust in the corners, a well beyond its prime coatrack of uncertain steadiness, a couple of mismatched chairs, a small end table with magazines describing the first Apollo landing in 1969, an office area with a snarled desk, unmatched chair, and a few, too few file cabinets if Fred was prosperous which he was not. Later when they were easier to figure out he did purchase a computer but otherwise over the years the place had, and would continue to have, that beleaguered downward spiral look.    

Alexander one time early on remarked, no, made the mistake and remarked, that Fred was no Bogie while they were sitting at the counter of Dolly’s having their coffee and. Apparently this kind of remark was Fred’s pet peeve because he commenced to rail against the popular notion of what a private detective looks like, what his office looks like, and the real cases that he handles. They are not the murder cases of cinematic and book renown, the public cops, detectives handle that, well or poorly, but in some then twenty years in the business he had never seen any private detective brought in to solve a murder and only once had heard that a very rich guy who had the dough to do so and was frustrated with the public coppers and their inability to solve the kidnapping/murder of his young daughter actually had a private detective savvy enough to solve the crime, after two years on the trail.                   

 No the real work was bullshit stuff. Some barber from Gloversville whose wife ran off with a salesman and he wanted her back her, fast, maybe three days, and not too many expenses. Some “repo” work the average repo guys wouldn’t handle or wouldn’t be allowed by the insurance companies to handle. Back in the day a few Peeping Tom snooping around motels cases looking for adultery when the grounds for a civil divorce were harder to find. A lost dog or other pet once in a while if somebody was attached to the animal, although they usually found their ways home on their own or were never seen again. Looking for long lost relatives, usually fruitless since those relatives wanted to be lost from view. Maybe checking out a scam or two, flimflam stuff. Definitely not looking for lost falcons filled with riches and history with dead bodies and greedy people hovering around. Definitely not taking on some high-powered criminal gang when an old general with wild daughters one of whose husband is missing. Definitely not being employed by some man-mountain to find his long lost and wants to stay lost Velma. Definitely not trying to find some eccentric rich inventor guy whose thin shadow had disappeared in the mist and somebody liked that idea.                                 

 So that day Alexander got his comeuppance, got a first-hand real- world view of what private investigation was all about. Thereafter Fred, when the met for their coffee and at Dolly’s or sometimes when Alexander after work would go up to Fred’s office for a shot of whiskey from that bottle he kept in the bottom drawer of that snarled desk (and one of the few commonalities between real and film detectives) Fred would tell him stories about his previous cases, or cases that he had heard about from other P.I.s around the area when they ran into each other at some meeting or on a spree. Except the one time when Alexander became a moving part in a case that Fred would wind up getting involved in before the coppers stepped in. 

One day a guy, an ordinary looking guy, about thirty, fairly well-dressed, a sports coat and tie, trimmed hair and short beard, not from around Riverdale but with a New England accent, probably Maine, came in Alexander’s print shop looking for a customized job, a small job but in those days as people were self-printing more extensively the small jobs were drying up (fortunately the big commercial orders were still coming in at their normal pace). He wanted fifty copies of what he called a missing person’s poster, you know with photo of the person and description of last known place, who to contact and so on, done on the press and not the copy machine. No problem. Alexander handled the order while this young guy waited. 

A few weeks later the person who had come in with missing person photograph turned up dead, very dead along the bank of the Waban River. Not only very dead but very murdered from the bullet holes through his mangled soggy shirt. Chief Powers of the Riverdale Police came into Alexander’s print shop to find out what he knew about the situation since in the dead man’s back pocket there was a water-logged copy of the missing person poster that had his print shop mark on the right corner. Alexander told the Chief what he knew, said he wanted to help any way he could but the young guy was just a young guy and his description and demeanor would have fit a million young guys. As had the guy he was looking for. That pretty much ended Alexander’s involvement in the case, probably the case would go into those cold files that most murder cases go into if somebody doesn’t jump up and confess with all hands open.

Or so he thought. A few weeks later a young woman, Lara Barstow was the name she gave him, came into Alexander’s printing shop with a shopworn copy of the poster he had created for the murdered young man, and asked to see the proprietor. Since he was that person he introduced himself and asked how he could help her although he was a little suspicious that an average young good-looking woman like Lara would have any connection with the crime, or crimes associated with the young man for whom he had done the work or the young man on the poster. Lara soon cleared things up, “I have been to the police and they told me what happened to my brother Emmet, how he was found murdered out on the riverbank. They said that as far as they were concerned the case was still open but that they had no further leads to work on so that unless they got something that is probably where the case would stand.” [The police did not mention “cold case” file but Lara said she knew what they meant]. Lara then started to cry a bit and Alexander not knowing what to do offered his handkerchief and asked if he should call his wife to assist her in her time of troubles. Lara stiffened at that and told Alexander that she did not need that kind of help but that she was determined to find out who had killed her brother and asked if he had any ideas. Then Alexander, secretly thrilled at the prospect, told her that on the fifth floor of the building that they were standing in his friend, Fred, a private detective, had his office and that maybe he could look into the matter. Lara said that she did not have any serious resources (her word), meaning money but that if Fred as able to do something to find the murderer and clear up a legal situation then she would be coming into some funds. Alexander thinking to himself that this was starting to be something out of the movies let that statement ride only saying, “Let’s see what Fred says,” and led her to the elevator and the fifth- floor office. (On the way up she did not comment on the urine smell in the foyer, the seedy dilapidated aspect of the elevator and its slowness, or the condition of the outside building windows, broken panes letting the weathers in as they left the elevator that made him a little more wary since her whole demeanor was of some old-fashioned gentile upbringing but he figured she was desperate, concentrated on her task, or indifferent to such matter.

Fred, despite the seedy condition of his office, already commented on by Alexander and nothing had changed since the last time he had been up in the office for a few drinks so no further comment is necessary, was smooth affable charm itself when greeting and listening to Lara’s story. And listen he, they did for the story really did have a Hollywood feel to it.

“Emmet Barstow is, ah, was, my older brother, who had gotten into a lot of trouble when he was in prep school at Exeter Academy several years ago. I don’t know if I should tell you the nature of the trouble since it was a rather delicate matter.” Fred stopped her right there and said he needed to know everything, everything in this weak fact case, or he would not be able to help her. She continued, “Well, ah, see there was this other boy, this Prescott Devine, a pervert, you know, a homosexual, who tricked Emmet into having sex with him, having sex and taking photographs as it turned out.” [Fred and Alexander gave each other knowing eyes about what was to follow.] You know what happened next, Prescott forced my brother to continue with his wicked designs while in school and later asked for money to avoid a public scandal in our household. So Emmett paid, or rather my father paid before he died and after that Mr. Sidney, the lawyer who has handled our estate until we come of age, paid. Then Prescott fade from view for a couple of years until several months ago after my father died he showed up at our door looking for more money. Emmett gave him what he could but somehow he got wind of my father dying and remembered that Emmett was to inherit a large sum of money upon his death, something he had told Prescott when he was in the throes of love at the beginning [said bitterly]. The terms of the will were that Emmett would inherit almost everything when he turned twenty-five as long as he was alive, and if he were not then I would inherit. But only inherit if there was no cloud over his death. That part had been added only a few months before my father’s death, so he must have had a premonition of something happening.” She paused, then continued, “Emmett had been trying to find Prescott for a while after he had come to our house in order to tell him that he was no longer afraid of any scandal, that he would take his chances with society, our society which might be able to overlook what could be a youthful indiscretion, and maybe just a bout of loneliness. Somebody whom they went to school with told Emmett that Prescott was in this area living in Gloversville and that was why he had the posters made. He was going to distribute them around and the thousand dollars for information figured to draw somebody out who might know his whereabouts. That’s all I know until the police called to have me come and identify the body. The police have kind of let it go to hell and I need your help.

Fred wise to the ways of the world although not used to dealing with upper middle-class young women, as clients anyway except once he had a girlfriend from the leafy suburbs but the parents practically imprisoned her when they found out he did not have three names in his moniker, you know Ward Stewart Lawrence, stuff like that the Brahmins go for, told Lara he needed a one hundred dollar cash retainer before he could represent her in her time of sorrows. She opened her pocketbook, pulled out five Jacksons and they were in business.   

Fred said later that he sensed something was wrong from that moment, the moment she gave him the cash like she expected him to ask for cash rather than haggle over a check or something but Alexander said that was just Fred’s wishful thinking after the fact when the whole thing blew up in his face and the cops had to pull him out of the line of fire. To leave the reader in no suspense at this point Fred went out and did several days of investigation trying to locate the guy who told her brother that Prescott was in the area. He did locate him finally but the lad, a young man whom Fred using the old- time expression was “light on his feet,” and fearful to say anything at all. Fred pressed the issue though and the kid (Fred did not use that word) folded. It seems the kid, Fred said he would not use his name in order to get the information he wanted, also fell under the spell of Prescott, had his pants down more than once over the “crush” he called it, and had done Prescott’s bidding telling Emmett that Prescott was in Gloversville. A couple of days late Fred traced Prescott to a bed and breakfast place outside Gloversville. He figured that he would just go in and talk to Prescott but before he could enter the door to Prescott’s room there was a volley of gunfire aimed his way through the door. He got on the ground first and worked his way back to the kitchen where he called the cops, called the sheriff’s office because he was not sure Gloversville had its own police department. The sheriff came with a few deputies, and a few sharpshooters from the State Police SWAT team. After a couple of futile attempts at coaxing Prescott out they went in full blazes (Alexander said if anybody wanted to know the details of the firefight check with the Norfolk County Sheriff’s Office they would have all the details). After a few minutes the firing from Prescott’s room stopped. The cops went into the room and recovered the body, recovered two bodies really, for the other body belonged to one Lara Barstow.

The way things figured out later piecing together everything found in Prescott’s room and later at Lara’ house what happened is when Prescott came to confront Emmett for dough he somehow caught Lara’s eyes, gave her a tumble or two, maybe more (whether he was bisexual or not who knows maybe the dough gave him some weird sexual energy if he was completely gay). Whether he was just working the scam of a lifetime for a lowlife like him or he had some affection for Lara who knows. What is known from some legal papers found at Lara’s house is they formed a scheme to kill Emmett and have her inherit the family money (when she turned twenty-five as well a lawyer handling the trust before that time). Prescott must have known from that scared  kid that Emmett was on his trail. They probably met somewhere and Prescott put a couple of nasty slugs in him and shipped him off down the Waban River and easy street. What fouled the whole thing up was the part about having to know the cause of Emmett’s death before the trust could even be touched in the future. The whole Lara tall tale story in Fred’s office was to see if they could find a fall guy, maybe some hobo or something. Not every criminal, smart or stupid always figures things out right but that what it looked like. Maybe Lara thought just hiring Fred would satisfy the terms of the trust. Who knows. But when Fred was able to find Prescott he, they panicked. And that was that. So Alexander forever after will be able to say he way part of solving a private detective-type crime. He was just glad, glad as hell that he had not accompanied Fred when he had asked him to go to Prescott’s room. He thought save that part for the movies.           

“Elementary, My Dear Watson”-The Film Adaptation Of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes Saga “The Hound of the Baskervilles” (1939)

“Elementary, My Dear Watson”-The Film Adaptation Of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes Saga “The Hound of the Baskervilles” (1939)

DVD Review

By Alden Riley

[As of December 1, 2017 under the new regime of Greg Green, formerly of the on-line American Film Gazette website, brought in to shake things up a bit after a vote of no confidence in the previous site administrator Allan Jackson who for what seems like a millennia used the moniker Peter Paul Markin after a high school friend who had told him what was what in the writing world, was taken among all the writers at the request of some of the younger writers abetted by one key older writer, Sam Lowell, the habit of assigning writers to specific topics like film, books, political commentary, and culture is over. Also over is the designation of writers in this space, young or old, by job title like senior or associate. After a short-lived experiment designating everybody as “writer” seemingly in emulation of the French Revolution’s “citizen” or the Bolshevik Revolution’s “comrade” all posts will be “signed” with given names only. The Editorial Board]

 

The Hound Of The Baskervilles, starring Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce. Richard Greene, from the crime novel of the same name by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1939

A number of us, of the younger writers mostly, the ones who have identified ourselves as the “Young Turks” in the 2017 ouster and from unconfirmed reports shunting off to Utah so I have heard of Allan Jackson, the former site administrator, have chaffed a little under having to have below our by-lines the statement above about how we overthrew the “tyrant,” and now must seemingly suffer for who knows how long with the constant reminder of our valorous  deeds. (Although this has absolutely nothing to do with Allan’s exile or this review I can’t help but say Utah is a lovely place which may not stay that way long with recent moves, 2017 moves, by President Trump and his oil and fossil fuel-soaked cronies  to open up now designated National Monument to wide-scale exploitation of natural resources and which even if ruined has got to be a better place of exile than Alabama where seriously demented asocial people rule the roost any day of the week.) In fairness the older writers who supported Allan almost to a man are also subjected to the statement so-ordered to let everybody know a new more democratic road is ahead but as the losers in the internal struggle they can claim some kind of red badge of courage out of the sentiment. Nobody wants a fight to the death over the matter of the disclaimer not after the recent blood-letting but enough is enough. 

That said we have also as the attentive reader may have noted been encouraged to speak our minds as part of our writing about various points which brought about the internal explosion at this publication in order as Greg Green and the Editorial Board have stated to give those readers and inside view of how a social media-driven sources of news and opinion should work when in its previous incarnation it was anything but, had turned into an Allan Jackson nostalgia for all things wild and wooly 1960s franchise- end of story. I have had my say elsewhere on other aspects of the controversy, but I feel that I would be remiss in my duty if I didn’t mention how hard it was under the Jackson regime to get something as simple as a review of a film featuring one of the classic detectives of all times, Sherlock Holmes the fertile creation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle whose crime novels filled many a youngster’s hours years ago.  

Without seeming to pile on the now departed Jackson what was a basic free-for-all being leveled by writers young and old against his regime and its foibles there is a little point to be made. I had tendered under the old regime to concentrate on more modern films and then Senior Film Critic, a title now mercifully abolished, Sandy Salmon on the older films. Except that as a child I devoured the Sherlock Holmes books and was interested when I saw that the film was open for review on the office assignment board to watch the film and write about my take on the venture. Markin (oops Jackson’s longtime moniker at this site) said no. Said no not for his usual reason that older films were Sandy’s province but that he did not want any “parlor detectives” to muddy up the site since he believed that after the emergence of hard-boiled anti-hero private investigator crime detection with the likes of Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade and Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe such types were passe. End of story. Subsequent to Jackson’s bumpy road departed under a cloud I approached new administrator Greg Green and asked if I could do some work on the Sherlock Holmes films which were the stock-in-trade of a whole generation of movie-goers who thrilled to the wit of Holmes and the buffoonery of Watson. In two seconds he gave his approval noting that the Holmes character was widely loved by many movie-goers on both sides of the Atlantic just because he was not hard-boiled (and not a “parlor” detective either). So here goes.    

Much has been made by old-time writer and reviewer Seth Garth , a long-time friend of the departed Jackson  and hold-over under the new regime because, well, as Greg tells it he can write, in an alternative series of reviews in the Rathbone-Bruce version of the Holmes legend about the “odd” relationship between the two men and the persistent rumor that they were using the private detective dodge out of Baker Street as a front for half the criminal activity in greater London. Today we would call that “peculiar” relationship between the two merely another gay twosome if we said anything at all and as for the criminal activity underneath the so-called P.I. front well people have to live and their landlady over on Baker never squawked. The real point being what does that either of those understandings have to with solving mysteries like the one under review, the classic Hound of the Baskerville which still makes me shutter and respect Brother Holmes’ expertise.

Why? This one is strictly based on what wants the dough badly enough to set the Baskerville dynasty asunder since the last of the Baskervilles, Sir Henry, is under threat. At least that is the story that his close and worried friend tells Holmes and Watson. Tells them too that legend has it that the Baskervilles are marked with the sign of Cain, that somebody or something is out to destroy the family for purposes unknown (although I can tell you right now that the Baskerville fortune is extensive and so the first thing anybody should figure out, as Holmes did, was who wanted the dough, the estate once the last of the line passed on-with or without help). If you can believe this the villain of the piece is a dog, a huge Great Dane, who has the disturbing habit of offing the average Baskerville in the area. Just ask Sir Hugo, an uncle of Henry’s who met his gory demise in such a manner. Of course the dog could not act alone, could not become a vicious monster without human help, without somebody who wanted that pile of dough so bad he devised a nasty plan involving that demented dog (and a person who should be immediately reported to the local humane society). Not without some difficulties Holmes wraps this one up in the end without a fuss once he figured that the hook was somebody who had a stake in getting the estate if Henry was out of the way. A guy named Stapleton fit the bill and after a dog scare and some gunplay he escaped but not for long since the coppers posted along road would get him if a homicidal maniac in the dreaded moors didn’t first. Beautiful work Sherlock I knew you could do this one with no sweat and with little help from your dear friend Doc.  

How The Fixer Man Got A Film Well- Hollywood Bingo-Matt Dolan’s Revenge- With Primo Detective Fiction Writer Dashiell Hammett In Mind

How The Fixer Man Got A Film Well- Hollywood Bingo-Matt Dolan’s Revenge- With Primo Detective Fiction Writer Dashiell Hammett In Mind

By Zack James

Matt Dolan was a “fixer” man. No, not the drug-dealer fixer man famous, or infamous, in mean streets lore or in the hard-edged short stories of addiction, mostly heroin (horse, H, boy) by the crusty writer Nelson Algren, he of The Man With The Golden Arm the film adaptation of which revived Frank Sinatra’s film career, who had that scene down pat in an earlier age, an age when such addictions were sidebars and not front page headlines like today. Matt Dolan, called Mack for some reason buried so far back in childhood that nobody, including Matt knows how he came by that moniker, was a writer, is a writer who comes in and fixes up some film, some “picture” as they say in the trade when it is going off the wheels for any number of a hundred reasons that a script, even if the scriptwriter is the guy or gal who wrote the thing that the studio paid all that money for but was getting dragged down because somewhere after production had started the thing started turning in on itself and the studio, or more likely the producer of the particular film, would call Mack in to bail the film out, bail the director and everybody who worked the sets who saw their wages ending if the damn thing wasn’t  “fixed” by guys and gals like Mack.

Sure there are a million writers, some good, some bad who write anything from multi-week best sellers on some publications lists to stinkpots (pardon the old-fashioned word but it applies to some of the thousands of writings Mack had run through in his time). Sure there are a million screenwriters, or it seems like it when they roll the credits, mostly good or were at one time good and were either protected by the Guild or by somebody in management who owed them something. But there were, are surprisingly few “fixers” in the whole of the film industry and so they command high wages (really these days some fixed amount usually in the six figures agreed to in advance and signed on the dotted line as per Guild agreement which covers fixers as well as all the other categories of writers and musicians). Mack was, is among the best and has been since the 1950s when he broke into the industry and after a few false starts, and disappointments, got his reputation cemented when he saved the “stinker” High School Confidential. 

Mack came up with the very bright idea that that worthless cautionary tale about high school kids succumbing to the lure of heroin provided by evil nightclub owners and other denizens of the back alleys, the fixer man who deserves to roast for a while in hell just as every junkie should get a free pass to heaven since they served their collective hells on this planet, needed a big fix to take the stink off the thing that every kid would reject out of hand because it had the “voice of authority’ festering in it like some bleeding boil. The way Mack saw it no kid in his or her right mind was going to sit through their precious Saturday afternoon double-feature at the local Majestic Theater to be told stuff they got at home every day for free, and endlessly too. So Mack, a little younger then than the average screenwriter on the Hollywood scene and savvy to the role that music, specifically rock and roll music after Elvis and others broke the ground, came up with the idea of putting the then “hot” rock and roll mad monk saint Jerry Lee Lewis on the back of a flatbed truck with his piano and his sidemen and have the truck tooling toward the high school as he played his flame-throwing song High School Confidential. The film grossed a ton of money off of a shoestring budget because all the kids cared about was that scene and then they could go back to whatever boy-girl thing they were doing the in the dark upstairs balconies. Mack could name his price after that, usually. All the studios wanted him.         

But the supply and demand stresses of being a fixer put a lot of pressure on Mack, especially when he was working on some play or screenplay of his own which he was looking to have produced. One night Mack, who besides being a fixer man loved the ladies, loved the young ones especially even as he got older, said they kept him young, or whatever reason older guys give these days for chasing young skirts (or for older gay guys and lesbian women these days when the great secret of Hollywood same sex lives has become passe and they too can openly cavort with the younger set of their sexual identity) , was telling Jack Callahan, an executive at Excelsior Films, the company that he had the closest ties to over the previous  twenty years or so over drinks at his favorite watering hole, The Dirty Duck, off of Vine Street, about how he got his first contract to fix a “stinker” at Excelsior.

At that time maybe the summer of 1972 Max Stein called him up when he was up in Big Sur trying to work out some kinks in a screenplay that would later be produced under the title Love In The Park (and which made that studio, the now defunct Blue Blaze Films, a ton of money but not enough to keep the wolves away when they produced a big series of flops, real stinkers, none of which they saw the wisdom of bringing him or any fixer in on) and told him that the latest film he was producing, Hurry, My Sweet, was losing steam, needed a fixer man and he had heard through Harry Swann at Delta Films that Mack was the man he needed. Mack pleaded prior commitment but Max threw up a number that Mack couldn’t refuse and so he committed to a two- week stint back down at La Jolla where the film was shot to try to work something out of the air once again. Max sent him along with the contract a copy of the screenplay as it was then being worked on.

What the script was about was an old-time kind of detective story, a genre that was making a comeback on the screen, after a long absence since the time of the great black and white film noirs of the 1940s and 1950s. The plotline involved as those type films always did some nefarious murder (or murders depending on how grizzly the producer and director though they could take the thing and not have irate parents banning their kids from spending their dough to see it) to be solved by a resourceful detective. One hook here was that the hard-boiled female detective, they always had to be hard-boiled whatever their gender since the days of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler switched things up back in the 1920s and 1930s, Patty Lane, being played by veteran screen actress Mara Whiting.

Another hook was that the bad guy was a bad gal, Laura Devine, played by the beautiful Gina Saint-Germain, who had wasted her drug-dealing lover, Gary Lawlor, played by rising star Sam Lawrence, after he had turned Laura’s sister, Sarah, played by new comer Sissy Moore, on to drugs and to the streets doing tricks for short money to feed her habit. The big hook though is that Sarah, after Laura wasted Gary, was holding five kilos of pure high- grade Columbian cocaine which she intended to sell to the highest bidder, Laura or anybody else, so she could get off the streets and feed her own habit in private. Laura putting pure greed over sisterly love sent some of her boys (and a girl sharpshooter as well) out to find the sister, find the dope really. Hard-pressed Sarah looked up in the Los Angeles telephone directory for a detective to help her out, for protection really, and to broker a deal if necessary and came up with Patty who she thinks is a guy because the listing of the agency was Pat Lane and Associates. Pretty standard stuff but Mack could see where Max was a little panicky because if the theme reflected more contemporary times and concerns it was still a “stinker” as far as he was concerned.                        

When Mack got to the set down in La Jolla not far from the university and close to the rock-strewn ocean that was playing a nice visual backdrop to the action he told the director, Josh Lannon well-known for working B films on short money, and short storyline filling out the meek dialogue with plenty of action, the thing was a stinker, no question and no amount of action was going to cover-up a beaten down storyline. Of course Josh took umbrage at that statement saying that he was given the thing for short money by Max and if Mack could bring it around well fine, if not then that was that. Mack was used to that kind of reaction and knowing he had money-man Max’s backing let it ride, let the ill-tempered director blow off steam.  

Of course Mack also knew that once production was started, once the actors had committed to their parts as best they could that all the interpersonal problems that face any collective effort, egos, bruised feelings, hostility, make-shift love, and desire for bigger roles in the film-and in future films if an actor showed promise, especially in a stinker came into play. That is where Mack’s fixer skills and love of younger women got a serious work-out.

About an hour and a half after Mack got on the set while sitting in an off-stage cubicle trying to figure out a new hook to make the audience interested enough in any character to take a chance and see the movie Sissy Moore came into his space. No question she was a good-looking young woman and as soon as she entered he had ideas, knowing she had ideas. Tall, slender, red-hair, long legs, not beautiful, not Gina Saint-Germaine beautiful for even a Hollywood novice knew, knows that you cannot have two beautiful women on one screen because they will not stand for it, and the audience won’t either even the women, but the kind of woman that once the film is over you think about, think about to the exclusion of the serious beauty.         

Sissy had heard that morning that the famous Mack Dolan was coming to fix the script and while she was only a new-comer people around the set and around Hollywood said with some proper training and proper roles she could be somebody. That was all she needed to know to get her small-town girl (Lima, Ohio) wanting habits on. She took dead aim at Mack, despite the fact that at the time she was maybe twenty years younger than him, and he had not due to that huge alcohol and lately drug consumption  aged gracefully, and coming right up to him so he could smell that gardenia perfume she was wearing mixed with thoughts of hard sex ahead she laid it on the line (she, as she told Mack after they had hit the satin sheets over at the Biltmore a few times, knew through the usually very reliable starlet grapevine that he had a thing for younger women, with or without the gardenia perfume).

She wanted her part built up, thought bad ass bad girl Laura in the story, meaning really Gina, after she wasted Gary was nothing to the whole plot, that she should be seen more, have more lines around her ability to evade the bad boys Laura sent after her, played more of a role helping Patty take the heat off of her. In return Mack could have, as she rather coyly put it, given what she was offering, he could have anything he wanted from her, anything she had to give.

Now, as Mack told Jack that night at the Dirty Duck, there are more urban legends about how famous stars, male and female, yes, males in the then male-dominated management end, worked their way up the cinematic food chain by “offering anything somebody in power wanted, anything they had to give” and a fair amount was just that-urban legend. But even back in 1972 there was plenty of sex being traded for stardom, or hopes of stardom, or better somebody in power taking advantage of some youngster’s hopes of stardom before being shunted back to Topeka, Toledo, or Boise. So Mack made his pact with Sissy, made it tight, and for the length of his time on the set he got his ashes and whatever else he wanted hauled by her. This time, unlike a few times before when he was a guy in power himself playing on some young thing’s hope for stardom, his agreement to get Sissy more screen time, more to say, was based on what he had seen in the rushes, had seen that star quality, maybe not the top but she would not have to sit by the midnight phone hoping for work.    

Naturally the increase of one actor’s role at the expense of another, here Gina, caused an uproar on the set, caused Gina to say she would not perform at her usual high level. Mack knew he had Max’s okay, since he had called him after the pact with Sissy was consummated the first time so he was able to ride it out. Here’s how: Mack determined that what the film needed with so many good-looking females was more sex, or in those days when it was still dicey to get too graphic in sex scenes, was the allure of sex. Now it wasn’t going to be Patty as the crusading detective ready to save an errant young woman and Gina flat out refused to do any sex scenes but Sissy, well, Sissy really was up for anything that would get her up the food chain, especially after Mack put the bug in her ear that such efforts would enhance her career opportunities.

There wasn’t much that Mack could do with the script with what was already in the can but that is when he came up with the idea that would save the damn thing. Sissy early on as she got more addicted to the drugs Gary was feeding her and was out doing tricks on the streets got into a situation where some guys Gary knew propositioned her to come to a poker party with them. She agreed once Gary said he would “make her well.” So the scene got set up in a smoky hotel room, cards out, chips out, cigarettes out, drinks out on the table and then Sissy dressed scantily like a Playboy bunny, popular at the time, without saying a word starts going provocatively under the table. Nothing showing what is happening but obviously Sissy is going down to “play the flute” as Mack put it euphemistically in his stage directions. That B film made a ton of money for Excelsior because all the kids cared about was that scene once they heard about it and then they could go back to whatever boy-girl thing they were doing the in the dark upstairs balconies, go back with a vengeance. That one scene made Sissy a “hot” property (and forced Gina in a later film to do a “play the flute” scene more graphically shown than anything Sissy had done) Among the gossips of the town, among your average red-blooded males out in the hinterlands Sissy was almost always thereafter called “the flutist” and nobody had to ask twice who that was or what it meant. Brilliance, Mack, pure brilliance.